Brave Enough to See (Bite the Hand that Feeds)
by Sweetbriar
Summary: A what-if canon divergence centered on a bit of illogic of season 4 episode 6, 'Servant of Two Masters': Why would Gwen ever keep this from Arthur? Merthur.


**Disclaimer: **I own nothing of this series.

**Summary:** A what-if canon divergence centered on a bit of illogic of season 4 episode 6, 'Servant of Two Masters': Why would Gwen ever keep this from Arthur?

**Author's Note:** Universe Alteration. Unconventional relationship. Merthur, from Gwen's viewpoint. A few lines borrowed from the show, as part of a scene to which I made minor changes.

Title is from the song "The Hand That Feeds" by Nine Inch Nails.

* * *

…

Brave Enough to See (Bite the Hand that Feeds)

…

Gwen just glances at a horribly familiar plate central to a barnyard death scene and a small something in her head clicks. Little cues of behavior and movement pick themselves up and stack themselves neatly under the new and vibrant banner in her head. In curling script it reads _Something Is Wrong With Merlin_.

It began with his return: riding on a horse behind Gwaine without struggling to remain seated, without complaining as trot slowed to walk and then to full stop. Arthur fretted for many reasons—being forced to leave Merlin behind, their route betrayed to an unknown party—but Merlin's serious injury made even Arthur's hope falter. Frustrated with himself, he threw himself out into the forest and returned with their missing friend, accomplishing what patrols and his best knights could not. When she approached Arthur in the courtyard, relief and worry battling in her questions as she clasped his arm, he told her, "I must have magnified the damage in my worry." And yes, that must be it.

It continued with Merlin's grimace as Gaius led him to the infirmary, with the servant watching Arthur as the king walks away. Arthur doesn't look back to see the shine in Merlin's eye, the sheer longing in every crease of his frown. Subtle looks are much more his style than this blatant ogle. She meets Gwaine's smirk with a raised eyebrow. The two of them glanced around the courtyard and shared another moment of relief when it seems no one else noticed. He pats her shoulder, pausing just long enough to whisper, "Just the stress getting to him." And yes, that would explain Merlin's fumble.

It continued with Merlin's extremely out of character behavior upon Gwen taking some of his duties on that morning. This is unusual on two counts. Firstly, he should have come to Arthur's room first thing that morning and thus learned that his duties were lighter for the day. Having clearly skipped that step, the cook should have informed him. But he appears with a plate and his expression when he looks at her is—if she didn't know better, she'd call it _hatred. _And that is the second peculiarity, because he is one of three people in Camelot who knows exactly what she and Arthur are to one another.

It was clear in the early days when she saw their attraction tightening to unfulfilled, unacknowledged, wire-taught tension. Yet Camelot needs a queen and Arthur, heirs—so the bedroom remains private, the throne room public. In the absence of any nobility Arthur finds suitably trustworthy, turning to the gentle attraction they feel for one another is only logical. He loves the queen he can see her be; she loves the king that shines within him. Even her love for Lancelot—and her heart aches so at the loss—would not have stopped her acceptance of proposed duty.

They've had this conversation, still have it, particularly after the loss of a trusted knight and friend, Gwen's possible true paramour under the guise of duty to the kingdom. (Perhaps it is a little easier for her, this way, not to hurt Lancelot with the subterfuge which would have been necessary. He was ever such an honorable man, and she thinks the lies would have hurt him more than thinking his love unrequited.)

Perhaps this means that Arthur should gather his courage and make a gesture to Merlin, share his private desire with the one for whom he longs. He's cautious, always, thinking of what is best for the kingdom and for her and especially for Merlin himself, a servant and friend Arthur would never wish to place in an unwanted position. He knows how clumsy he is with expressing private thoughts, let alone emotions. Gwen's assurances that his advances would be welcome do nothing to assuage his fear, or his concern that Merlin would feel it obligation or duty.

Regardless, Merlin's reaction this morning concerns her. Not even in the earliest uncomfortable stages has Merlin showed more than mild jealousy. And in the wake of their trust being placed in him, it seemed a quiet, private reaction easily soothed. Without saying a word on the matter, Gwen watched him relax again around Arthur, no longer uncomfortable around her as though betraying their friendship in being attracted to Arthur.

The scorn he directs her way hurts deeply, but like Arthur, bewildered confusion outweighs the pain. They look at each other once he's left, Arthur wilting imperceptibly around the eyes and shoulders, wounded by one he thought dangerously hurt and lost to him, and Gwen grasps for an explanation. As she sinks into a chair, she says, "He's trying to reconcile what happened," and pats Arthur's arm. "Being separated from you and hurt, then being alone. It's only his first day back. He'll have to work through it a little more." And yes, that has to be what it is.

But now, now she carries a plate with food from the royal kitchens which a pig gorged on and _died_ by eating. It cannot be what it looks like, but yes, these were the foods Merlin had with him.

_Maybe it's not the same plate he brought. Just a similar one._

_But what if it is?_ Gwen answers herself. She cannot take the risk. With this possible piece of the puzzle, the earlier bits take on shades of not-so-innocent. Not so easily explainable.

Why doesn't his injury pain him? How could Arthur—experienced in battle, knowledgeable about wounds—have so badly mistaken the extent of it? Where has Merlin's subtlety, and open heart, gone? Why was he so angry at her? What happened to the food he brought—or, unthinkably: what did he do to it?

Her fingers clench around the plate. She has to know if there is more. If there is more, she is not paranoid. She can't be the only one to have seen something.

* * *

Gwen wraps the plate and remaining food in a sheet and tucks it into a basket, then piles day-old flowers atop it. She makes her rounds through the training ground, collecting the Knights of the Round Table—as they've taken to thinking of themselves—one by one, and leads them to her brother's chambers. She keeps an eye out for Merlin or Arthur as she goes, apparently none too subtle herself for Gwaine calls her out on it as soon as she closes the door with a last look down the corridor.

"You're jumpier than a doe in hunting season," he says. "Are we planning a coup on the Princess?" Despite his joking, his eyes are serious and piercing.

She places her basket on the small table. "Have any of you noticed—that is, has Merlin being acting strangely? Around any of you?"

Being so straightforward is unusual for her. She knows Elyan can see the stress lines forming around her eyebrows when he crosses his arms and frowns at her. He and Percival shake their heads. "Haven't seen him," her brother says.

Percival adds, "We just returned from that patrol." It was a stroke of luck that they were walking through the training fields on their ways back to their chambers.

Gwaine lifts one shoulder. "When we were riding back, he seemed quieter than normal. I thought it stress. He was pretty tired."

One place she was not present. "Did he say anything unusual?" He hesitates, a flicker of his eyes. "Don't make an excuse or think of a reason. Just say it."

He grimaces, but admits, "He told me to shut up after a bit. But, come on, I run at the mouth, I know it—"

"But it's Merlin," Percival breaks in quietly. His few words say a lot: Merlin's patience, his good humor, his kind nature, all such a large part of him. His friendship with Gwaine is strong, and he's one of the few who can listen to the knight's yammering for hours without a single harsh word.

She glances at Leon, whose frown indicates that he's thought of something. She watches and waits, letting him come to his words on his own, and he finally asks a question of his own. "Has Arthur been less…sensitive than usual?"

Even Gwen has to snort at the thought of Arthur being anything but emotionally reserved and rather obtuse about treating another person gently. He means well, but defaults to punching shoulders and threatening punishment (especially around Merlin).

Leon shakes his head and the quirk of his lips fades as fast as it appeared. "Let me rephrase. Has he irritated Merlin badly this morning?"

Gwen purses her lips. "No." The irritation was directed at her, but it wasn't followed by a possessive chaser directed at Arthur. In fact, Merlin expressed no affection or aggravation, no insinuated sliver of pain, no blame directed at Arthur for leaving him behind. He glared at her and then left.

"Gwen." She looks at Elyan, at his growing frown and clenched fists. "What happened this morning to make you ask about Merlin?"

She sighs and tells them. About Merlin not seeming to know his duties were lighter that day, his irritation and lashing out. As she speaks, she removes the flowers and pulls out the sheet-covered plate, unwraps it, and tells them about where she found it—and what she found it with.

The metal clinks on the table as she places it down. Any glimmer of humor has been sucked out of the room. When she looks at Leon again, his troubled expression has grown bewildered, a deep furrow between his brows.

"Earlier, in the armory," he says. "I thought he was joking, but Merlin was looking for a crossbow. When I asked, he told me it was to kill Arthur."

And _oh_, that hurts, that hurts so much so deep in her heart. It might have seemed a joke alone, words uttered before on particularly bad days when Arthur's thrown his weight down on Merlin without mercy and they have a loud fight—but she looks at the plate under her hand and whips it back like, well, like it's poison.

"Gwaine," she says, her own voice echoing in her ears, "was Merlin injured when you found him?" When she meets their eyes, bristling with swords half-drawn at their sides, she sees confusion. "Arthur said he had been badly wounded, remember? Before they were separated."

Gwaine shakes his head. "We were so relieved to see him. I didn't even think of it when he moved without pain." His eyes darken. "Do you think it might not be him?"

She shrugs helplessly. "I—I don't know. I just know that _this_," she pokes at the plate. "Is _not_ Merlin."

"No," Leon says, his anger cooling to ice. "But whatever happened out there has been brought here. We must find Arthur and Merlin."

"Gaius," Gwen says, reaching for the door. "Maybe he'll have an idea—if it's magic—"

"Has to be," Elyan mutters, one hand wringing the handle of his sword. The knights are furious with this trickery, at either the manipulation or death of a dear friend. Gwen slips out and down the corridor and vows that _their_ Merlin will be brought back.

* * *

Gaius comes with her immediately, having his own worries paired up among others. She tells them of going to the Knights and when he bites his lip, assures him that they will find fake-Merlin, or enchanted-Merlin, before anything happens to Arthur. "I know that would be of greatest worry to him, too."

* * *

Part of her is entirely surprised, while the other wholly expected this.

When she and Gaius enter Arthur's chamber without knocking, they stare at the tableau inside. Leon's plastered against the side of the armoire, off-balance like he threw himself at the door. Gwaine's picking himself up off the floor. Arthur's pinned to the frame of his bed by an arrow just under his armpit. Percival has Merlin by the arms and Elyan has a good grip on his legs as he writhes and twists in their grasp.

She wheezes at the sight of Arthur like that, bewildered and angry and, heartbreakingly, looking at Merlin as though his world has collapsed.

Merlin shouts abuse at all of them, calling them creative names with a terrifying well of rage in his eyes.

When she and Gaius enter Arthur's chamber, every eye turns to them. Arthur's flicker back to Merlin immediately, as the manservant snarls, "Fantastic, more useless people!"

Gwen bars the door before heading to Arthur's side. Gaius steps up to his ward, eyeing Merlin as his struggles fade and he begins to sulk. She's pulling the arrow out of wood and fabric when Gaius says, "Merlin. Why are you trying to kill Arthur?"

Merlin looks at Gaius, tilting his head to the side, and replies, "Because I have to."

Arthur snorts. Gwen places her hand against his chest and stills him as Gaius retorts, "But why?"

His truly expressive eyebrow is raised, but Merlin's the one who looks as though Gaius is speaking a foreign tongue. "She said so."

_She?_

Arthur's body tightens further. Gwen tries to pat his arm, but he grasps her wrist and turns a bit, so she's behind him. His shoulders are tighter than she's ever seen, thrumming tension. "Who the bloody hell is _she_?" His voice holds no warmth, nothing he regularly directs at his manservant-and-friend (and possible-future-lover). Her heart aches for him, for them.

When Merlin's eyes dart their way, Gwen realizes his eyes hold something worse than a lack of devotion, of caring, of compassion. They hold no recognition. He blinks and doesn't answer, looking at Arthur like he is a particularly curious animal that just began talking.

Gaius breaks their staring contest when he tugs Merlin by the neckerchief. Merlin yelps and Gaius turns his head. Percival adjusts his grip, twisting the body in his arms, and Gaius tilts Merlin's head forward.

Percival's eyes widen in surprise and his hands spasm. "What—"

Gaius' lips thin to a white line. He steps back. "Knock him out."

Merlin yelps in protest, but Gwaine surges from where he's been vibrating by the table and smashes an empty wine jug over his head.

Gwen huffs. Gaius turns his formidable eyebrow on the knight. Gwaine shrugs in apology. "Don't think I could have managed to punch him," he says, a tight grimace twisting his handsome face.

Gaius jerks his head. "Sir Percival, please take Merlin to my workshop. Sire," he says, turning, anticipating Arthur's angry huff of breath and soon-to-follow shouts, "Sir Leon can explain to you what we know of the situation. Guinevere, I may need your assistance."

She briefly hugs Arthur, unable to conceal her worry, and cuts him off before he can start yelling. "It'll be all right."

Then she abandons Leon to the cause, only feeling marginally guilty for letting him bear the brunt of their king's confused, hurt wrath. He's just the type who would have volunteered for it.

Still, her footsteps pick up speed when the echoes of a smashing vase and pained roars follow her down the hall.

* * *

Arthur has calmed by the time he enters Gaius' workshop, but his eyes narrow when he sees Merlin on the table, lying face-down. Gwen sits near his head and tries not to look, preferring to watch Gaius pound plants to powder for his concoction. Percival and Elyan guard the door, while Gwaine lounges on a chair with his arms folded in a proper sulk.

The three of them have been glowering at the walls like they're casting spells and cackling madly over their friend.

Leon's the one to ask. Arthur's lips are too tightly pressed against his rage—now, hopefully, directed at the proper recipient—and the aftereffects of thinking this was the worst betrayal imaginable. "Gaius, have you discovered anything?"

The physician turns. Gwen bites her lip at his grave expression. "Yes. It is his body, but his mind is not in control."

"How do you know?" Arthur asks. His voice bears the consequences of shouting long and loud.

Gwen reaches forward, tugging the edge of Merlin's shirt collar. The neckerchief is folded on the table by his head, under her fingers half the time. She wanted to cover it, but the horrid sight remains exposed to the air.

Leon's mouth tightens and he pales when he sees the moving black lump under Merlin's skin. Arthur recoils, then forces himself closer. His fingers reach out and brush the skin just underneath it and he withdraws almost as quickly, crossing his arms. Three lines in his forehead smooth and Gwen sees the mending of several small wounds. "What is that?"

Gaius gestures with his nearly finished poultice. "I have narrowed it down, sire. In a moment, I will be sure." He pours oil and some water into the powders, picks up a wadded cloth, and approaches the table.

The workshop's air thickens as he applies it to the skin. The solution goes on clear.

And the writhing _thing_ in her friend grows still. Gwen presses a hand to her chest, breathing deeply for the first time in a long while.

"Is it…dead?" Elyan asks. Gwaine rests a hand on her shoulder and she slips hers over it, squeezing for comfort.

When she looks at Gaius, her heart falls to her feet. "No," he says, placing the bowl on the table. "It is merely paralyzed."

"You know what it is now." Underlying Arthur's statement is the demand to know that answer for himself.

Gaius retrieves the book. "I believe it is a serpent, a fomorrah, sire." He needs no prompting to continue. "Or rather, one of the creature's seven heads. High Priestesses of the Old Religion used them long ago, but even in the recent past such a practice was reviled." He taps one finger on the picture.

Turning and pacing away from the table, Arthur asks, "What is it doing to him?"

"Enslavement. The Priestess implanted one of the serpent's heads in the victim and gave it a single command. The person would then become a puppet to the enchanter's will."

Gwen grasps Merlin's shoulder, wishing she could reach him. Her horror is compounded when she realizes that this dagger goes deep past the heart—it strikes at the very soul of Camelot, ripping at the friendship between a king and one of his most loyal subjects. At a deep bond between two men who call each other by name despite supposed station. This enchantment has twisted and warped one of the foundations of Camelot, forcing one most loyal to betray his very sense of self.

Arthur bows his head, back to all of them. Gwaine pats her shoulder and pulls away. Percival asks, "Can you remove it?"

"I can," Gaius says. He gathers a small blade, a numbing solution, and scraps of cloth.

* * *

Percival and Elyan remain in the workshop once the slippery, bloody snake's head goes into the fire. Arthur stayed only long enough to see the wound closed before storming out. Gwaine tags along after him, twitchy and brimming with energy. Gwen knows they have gone to work out their issues on the practice field. Gwaine needs movement to deal with his conflict; Arthur needs it to forget for a while.

Arthur's last command was for not a word of what happened to leave the room. He wishes to keep it from everyone else at court.

And, when he makes a point to mention his uncle by name, Gwen remembers his fear of a traitor among them—that their route was known only by himself, Gaius, and Agravaine. She does not want to think about that. Just as she does not want to see the blatant which no one has yet said aloud, but which every mind must have thought: that 'High Priestess' triggers a particular 'she'.

Attempting to take Camelot once wasn't enough? How far has her first love, first mistress, fallen—that she would do such a thing to one who was once her friend? To make him be the hand to slay her brother? This would have destroyed them both: Morgana knows that.

The cruelty is astonishing.

Leon returns to his duties and will ensure Percival and Elyan will have plenty of time to rest. They haven't been able to since the day before their departure, though neither is willing to stand down while Merlin remains unconscious. Not until they know for certain.

* * *

She hears the story from Elyan as he brings her back to the workshop. How Merlin woke up, manic and eager, and Gaius was bemused enough at his behavior not to call for help until he'd already been knocked over. Displaying evasive skill previously unknown to their clumsy friend, he evaded both startled knights at the door, but wasn't quick enough for Percival not to catch a glimpse of a writhing dark spot under the hastily re-tied knot of that silly neckerchief.

What followed was a roundabout chase through the corridors, rounding up the other Knights and attempting to apprehend him without alerting anyone else in the castle. This secrecy allowed Merlin to resume his duties, taking over from another servant who was dragging up water for Arthur's bath.

Leon hit him out this time, but not before he did _something_ to the bath—

"I'm sorry," she says, nearly halting in her mad dash at her brother's side. "It did _what_ to the blade?"

"Dissolved it."

They'll have to figure out where he got the acid from, but at least Arthur tested the water when Merlin showed up unexpectedly in his chambers. At least Leon saw Merlin from down the corridor and entered the king's chambers quietly enough that Merlin remained unaware until he was struck from behind.

She runs into the workshop, slipping past the knights with her eyes intent on the prone form of their friend, the rigid line of Arthur's shoulders, and Gaius dabbing at the back of his ward's neck again.

When he lifts the cloth that horrid black mass is frozen underneath a recent scab. Gaius raises his eyebrow at it forebodingly, daring it to keep moving.

Arthur bites out, "You took it out. We saw you take it out and burn the damned thing."

Sighing, the physician places the rag back in the solution. "A fomorrah is a magical creature, sire. If one head is cut off of the serpent, another grows in its place. Apparently…" He gestures to Merlin. "I've heard such stories in the past but never thought they were true."

"If it keeps re-growing, then how are we to free Merlin?" Gwen asks, reaching both hands out. One rests on Merlin's shoulder again, and the other twines with Arthur's.

"For the moment, it is paralyzed again. He should be himself." Gaius looks up at Arthur with a question in his eyes.

She does not follow his gaze. The answer is clear before Arthur says, "Wake him, then."

She squeaks when Arthur backs up, pushing her behind him, and really, she's not the target of this enchanted Merlin. The Knights cluster, not fully between the servant and the king but close enough to stop him from lunging off the table with their own bodies.

From somewhere in his shelves of medical supplies, Gaius produces a small container. He moves it under his ward's nose as a smoky vapor drifts out of the open top.

With his next natural inhalation, Merlin's body jolts. With a cough, and flailing arms, he scrambles to his knees. One hand rises to the back of his head and he squints, clearly disoriented, squawking, "What is that?" She breathes easy at the tone—disgruntled, bemused, but coupled with recognition as he glares at Gaius. Then he adds, "Arthur's socks?" and she stifles a hysterical giggle. Arthur snorts, affronted though the set of his shoulders has eased a fraction.

That's when Merlin seems to notice that he's not alone with his mentor. Dazed eyes take in the forms standing near and around the table, the angle of the light coming from outside, and his forehead creases. He doesn't lower his hand from his head. "What are you all trying to do to me?"

Gaius snaps, "Trying to stop you from killing the king!"

Gwen bites her lip. Gaius can be forgiven his crankiness. He loves Merlin as his own son and this situation has been stressful for all of them.

Merlin's hand falls, as his confusion surrenders to flashes of horror, fear, and guilt. A queasy, hysterical kind of breathy laugh escapes his lips as he looks at Arthur. She starts when he wavers, a sudden wobble in his legs—kneeling though he may be—causing him to rest a hand on the table.

But it is Merlin's sweet, confused voice as he struggles against Arthur pulling him off the table. Merlin's hesitant gestures as he rubs his own stomach. Merlin's wide, dewy eyes looking back out of his pale face.

* * *

Apparently, a fomorrah is so obsessed that it cannot feed its host body.

Merlin stares as they tell him the story they know, popping fresh berries into his mouth like they will run out of his bowl and down the hall. His elbows rest heavily on the table and his shoulders slump lower with every word. The misery in his eyes is compounded with anger. The sight brings her great relief—as does the slowly loosening fists that Arthur held when Merlin first turned his wide doe eyes on him.

Now, leaning on the table, Arthur turns the conversation. "Slow down. You'll choke if you inhale that any faster."

"Starving," Merlin grumbles, but his hand slows as he obeys.

"You need to tell us what happened and you can't do that while stuffing your face. What do you remember?" Arthur's jaw clenches as he asks. Gwen squeezes his hand.

Merlin pauses in his hasty feeding. His eyes trace lines in the table, flickering from side to side as he rifles through his memories. "Soldiers in the forest, a rock-fall," he says, a faint crease between his eyebrows. "I was hurt." His free hand presses there, seeking something, and his body goes rigid while his eyelids flare wide. "But—Morgana."

The name comes on a pained exhalation, illuminating the unspoken thought as solid truth. Gwen's eyes flutter shut briefly, a moment of mourning for a loss, a moment to coalesce into anger.

He's biting his lip when she looks again, anger and confusion in the lines around his lips and brow. He looks only at Arthur, apology in the slump of his shoulders. "She healed me. Told me what she was going to do before she conjured the snake, then—" His hand brushes the back of his neck and stills, feeling that lump. His hand turns into a fist and he lowers it to the table.

She sees a shudder run up his spine. Thinks, _I'd be screaming if I knew that thing was still inside me_.

Something in his body language screams for him, for no one to touch him. He looks at Gaius, asking the question only with his eyes. How long will I have my mind? How long until it takes over my body again?

His mentor says, "The poultice will keep it paralyzed for one day."

Arthur's eyes are hunter-sharp. A decision has been made. "The head cannot re-grow if the beast it grows from is dead."

Gaius nods. "I fear killing the mother beast is the only way to truly free Merlin." He lifts the book and places it beside Merlin. "It must be cast into a fire." He taps at the picture and Merlin looks at it.

Arthur does not seem inclined to research any further, judging by the way his fingers twitch for a sword handle. "Where can we find it?" he demands.

Merlin tears his eyes away from something that caught his eye in the book and makes a feeble attempt at an eyebrow arch. "Morgana's hut."

Arthur scowls. "Clearly. And where is her hut, _Mer_-lin?"

The manservant pauses in his berry-gorging, fingers of one hand pressing on the open pages of the book. "You can't find it," he says. "It's enchanted. Only someone who has been there before can return to it."

She sees the moment Arthur's stubborn nobility rears its arrogant head. "You are not going with us."

"_You_ shouldn't go at all," he retorts. "She wants you dead, Arthur." It's the truth, and plain as day by the mind-controlling snake in Merlin's head, but saying it is still painful. To hear, and to say, for Arthur winces and Merlin grimaces and they both look away from each other. Merlin adds, "And you shouldn't be near me."

Gwen rolls her eyes at her friend's display of protectiveness.

Arthur huffs and puffs up and snaps, "Gaius says you're fine until tomorrow."

"Besides, mate," Gwaine interrupts, looking to head off this flirt-fight and return them to the matter of business. Gwen appreciates their effort to repair the damage they've suffered, but anything more has to wait until this is over. "You're a rubbish assassin."

Merlin pouts, then looks confused, unsure whether he should be insulted or not. Arthur grabs a roll and lobs it at Gwaine's head. He ducks and it bounces into Percival's hand. The large man stuffs it in his mouth and looks pointedly at his king. Leon presses his hand to his mouth. Gaius forgoes subtlety and rolls his eyes to the ceiling.

Elyan mediates. "Merlin, we can protect Arthur—but, sire, he has a point. Regardless of who goes, perhaps the question is truly how many. If we go in large force, we run the risk of her escaping with the creature."

That sobers the mood quickly. Gwaine scowls as his effort at jokingly easing the tension disintegrates. Gwen offers him an apple.

* * *

With their heads on strategy, the Knights agree that this situation calls for delicacy more than brute force. It would be nice to ride in and take Morgana, but they are not sure they can take on her magic. The option they are left with is infiltration, seizure, and retreat. Once the fomorrah is dealt with, they can try to capture her, if she remains in her hovel rather than leaving after being robbed.

The question they are left with is who shall go in this small group, and that is proving difficult. All have volunteered, but Merlin's twitching in his seat and adamant that he go alone. Arthur says he'll go with him, everyone shuts the king down immediately, and he sulks and refuses to name someone else to go in his place. They reunite to refuse Merlin's repeated insistence that he be allowed out on his own. The conversation is circular and upon an already stressful day, Gwen thinks that Merlin looks ready to snap.

A part of her lingers on that, on the fear that it will and what will come if it does, even though the Knights seem not to notice Merlin's unraveling composure.

Still, she's startled when he shouts, "Shut _up_!" and clamps his hands over his ears.

That's when she realizes that his eyes never stopped twitching from side to side, as though searching his memory. She sees that his hands had grown tighter and tighter around the edge of the table and the sleeve of his own shirt. That his head occasionally turned when there wasn't a voice coming from a particular direction.

Having removed herself from the masculine chest-pounding (bred of fear, and anxiety, and guilt, though none will speak it), she slinks behind him while the others still blink at him in surprise and fear. Outbursts are uncharacteristic of Merlin, but this time she doesn't think it a symptom of the creature inside her friend taking control.

Motionless, clasping his head, fingers woven in his hair: Merlin is a statue of stress and misery. She reaches out and moves them, twining her hands with his, hissing as she sees that he drew blood.

Arthur's there suddenly, sinking to his knees within Merlin's line of sight, looking up at the servant's shadowed face. The king's eyes widen, flatten as he compresses something, and then grow determined. "It's paralyzed," he says, "but is it unconscious?"

Her eyes widen in horror.

They assumed that the lack of movement, and the fact that Merlin was in control, meant that the fomorrah was dormant. It can't control his body or his mind and so it must be as if the creature were gone.

But he tilts his head up, a grimace on his lips and defeat in his eyes. "No." He swallows. "It's—hissing, talking, and I can't get it to be quiet or sleep or anything, it just keeps _repeating_—" He cuts himself off.

Arthur doesn't ask what 'it' is: the fomorrah's obsession was obvious.

Gwaine stands. "We've talked enough."

Gaius comes forward with the poultice and Gwen moves aside to let him apply more in the hopes that it will help some. Arthur rises, arms tight and lips pressed together, but like the king he is, surrenders his stubborn resistance to staying behind. Arthur finally agrees to send Gwaine and Merlin, instead of avoiding an upcoming council meeting. The fomorrah is to be dealt with tonight rather than wait until morning. It may be dangerous, but none of them want Merlin to suffer any longer.

The others go to their duties and Gwaine goes to prepare the horses. Gaius agrees to delay the council a little longer.

And Gwen cleans, makes her hands busy, a veil of privacy for them. Phrases soaked in loyalty, in trust, and a little whisper of something private. A certain tension rises in the room that she can feel like a living pulse.

But it fades, and she turns as their typical camaraderie returns. She approaches them, silently cataloguing Merlin's determined expression. He gives her a hug and heads out the door, practically running away from Arthur for his safety—and running from what was said.

She looks at Arthur. He just purses his lips and wriggles his fingers in their private gesture for 'Merlin's Not-So Secret Magic'. He told Merlin to do whatever was necessary to bring himself back.

"Will he?" she asks as they make their own way out of Gaius' workshop. "Even if he doesn't know that you know? If he doesn't know what you really meant by it?"

"Especially because he thinks I don't know," he answers. This not-so secret has been guarded jealously, and they both wait for him to trust them with it, but the law remains. A king can do many things, but not change the minds of an entire ruling class in the few months he takes up the throne. Especially when magical attacks are so common and dire.

The waiting game is one they know well. Letting Merlin come closer to trusting Arthur, with both his secret and his body, is like gentling a startled, wild animal. Arthur tries and Gwen offers advice but in the end they wait and watch and worry and wonder.

* * *

Gwaine and Merlin return the next evening at nightfall. Gwaine looks like something huge smacked him upside the head—and has the bruise to prove it—while Merlin is both relaxed and full of tension. It's a different kind of tension, though, and when she and Arthur and the Knights congregate around the returning horses in the courtyard, his smile for all of them is genuine and truly himself.

Gaius hauls him off to remove the snakes head—for the last time, all hope—and confirmation is quietly sent to the king once the surgery is complete and the patient awake again.

Later, when Gwaine's beat himself up enough on the practice field, he meets with her and Arthur and tell them about how Morgana caught them and blasted Merlin out of the clearing, then panicked in true fear at the appearance of the old sorcerer Dragoon. How the old sorcerer blasted the serpent with magical fire while Gwaine was still pulling himself off the ground, then chased Morgana out of the clearing. And then how the two of them disappeared, leaving Gwaine searching and fretting until Merlin re-appeared from the opposite direction he was blasted in with no explanation, somehow knowing that the fomorrah was dead.

Arthur raises an eyebrow and exchanges a knowing look with the knight and Gwen sighs and looks to the old chest in the corner of the room, which holds a charm Gaius handed to the grieving king with admonishments for his rash anger, and understanding because it is true that magic took his father.

But magic also tried to heal him. And that pain hurt Arthur for long enough that Merlin was starting to wonder what he did wrong.

Even in his grief, though, Arthur knew who his true friends were—a fact which illuminated for Gwen, yet again, how different her Arthur truly is from Uther.

She knows well the stories from outside the citadel, the knowledge of the people of Camelot who knew Uther asked for magic's help once and was burned by it. Rumor whispers that it caused the queen's death, a consequence for demanding that which he should not have—though the demand itself is unclear. It's a tale no one ever speaks of near or to Arthur: he does not speak about his mother and would hate to hear such stories about his parents.

Gwaine leaves and Gwen goes to attend to some duties. She approaches with her tasks completed later in the evening and pauses before her fist touches wood. The voices she hears are stressed and torn, but there is deepness to them, tenderness. She peeks through the crack, only daring to inch it open a little bit more.

The shadows on the wall are close, yet two distinct bodies. Slumped shoulders on both, a bowed head—then a connection is made, a strangely thin arm tilting the lowered head. Her lips curl up as the shadows drift closer, that thin arm-shadow multiplying for a blade-balanced moment until two distinct body-shapes merge. She cannot tell precisely what it is: a friendly embrace for comfort or at long last something more. It does not matter.

She leaves the door as it is and retreats down the hall, to where the guards are stationed. As she passes, she tells them, "Let no one disturb the King tonight."


End file.
